


All My Pain

by Unicornsfartglitter



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Grief, Low Self Esteem, M/M, Minor Comic Spoilers, Pain, Past Childhood Abuse, cursing, slight self harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2019-05-07 10:57:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14669676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unicornsfartglitter/pseuds/Unicornsfartglitter
Summary: For Daryl everything hurts all the time but slowly Negan breaks through the wall he’s built.





	All My Pain

**Author's Note:**

> I’m on vacay but worked this short fic in.

Everything hurts. Losing Merle then ones who I loved but not as much. Beth shook me to the core taking with her my voice and my capacity to care about anyone else. Aaron was cool but I didn't get close because he would die, the family I already loved and couldn’t detach from would die as well and then I would be alone like I already felt I was when I stopped speaking and doing as much for them. There was no need to hunt, be the provider I was in these walls so it wasn't like I was useful at all.

Ma died young taking with her any love I had a child. Merle patched me up but was brute, being gay was wrong, crying was wrong, my soft features were wrong. I knew I was wrong and shouldn’t be here. Pa beat me if he was drunk, even if sober and even though Merle was an ass he took most of the abuse until one day he left me with no note or anything. The beatings were okay because I deserved them because I lived.

Pain was something I knew like a best friend. Half healed wounds opening up by a leather belt while more welts were made. Their sting was just something to bear like all the other cuts and broken bones. When pa died it was hard to get used to the pain being gone, to be able to cry when I could but I couldn’t do that not knowing how any more. When things went bad and yeah, they did even before walkers I discovered a cigarette pressed to my flesh just like pa did could help me cry and it felt better, it wasn’t healthy I knew but when I was like a dam ready to burst it helped me release and by now it was obvious I was not normal.

Pa dead, Merle gone I still woke up with pain. The creaky bones of an older man making it hard to get up, I figured it was from the same bones breaking over and over but I wasn’t smart so I could be wrong. I was never a complainer, there was no one to listen so I got up each morning and put my crossbow over my shoulder carrying it’s weight like my shoulders were strong. People at the prison looked at me like Hercules sculptured of stone there to help save them but now I’m a quiet freak gutting poor opossums for nothing other than joy.

The weary bones of mine don’t hurt now cancelled out by the steady tug of my sinking heart. Death keeps happening even though I denied to care for that person. The last that died I really cared for was Glenn and I wear his death everyday even though Maggie forgave me. I killed him, out of all the men I murdered he's the one I didn’t so I wear that wound open and bleeding on my heart and keep my mouth shut so no one else has to die because of me. No one wants me here anyway so being quiet is best to keep the peace and ensure I can stay.

Time changes, seasons with it and we find peace before it’s lost over and over. None of my deemed family die but Alexandrian’s do and by Carol and Rick’s tears I see if I let myself care I could hurt again. For once I’m doing something right because it doesn’t matter to me their gone. My ugly scars and still bleeding wounds won’t go away but I find no new ones.

Negan’s released and most hate it but after a few weeks I see a few come closer to him. Laugh at his jokes, give him an apple or a light pat on his broad shoulder. It’s stupid to trust him and I have a gun that I’m not so skilled with under my pillow waiting for him to slip up. There’s no doubt Rick did need to let him out because the new enemy is worse than The Governor or Negan himself and he is helping but still he’s the enemy.

Color me impressed when Rick’s delivered the head of our enemy and soon enough we are free again training and waiting for the next threat that will surely come. Negan tries to talk to me and I ignore him like the others here, I don’t like him anyway but I don’t want to get close regardless. I look at my reflection now that there is a mirror in my nice bathroom, better than anything I ever had before. The scars are still there ugly and thick marring my skin, they are hideous like I am inside. No wonder my ma willingly died on me and my pa beat me, Merle left me way before he turned.

Orange crisp leaves turn then fall off the trees, a new threat emerges but with Negan they don’t get far. Rick doesn’t have to make a fancy speech and there is no war, just Negan with a gun Lucille long gone and buried, I don’t know the story behind that and I don’t want to ask because I don’t care.

Negan starts to talk to me and I reluctantly answer, his gloved and healed hand nudging me aggravatingly until I answer. When my answers are short and clipped he laughs running a tongue along his stupidly still white teeth. The angrier I get with him the more he prodes getting off on it, he likes me to speak and it upsets me more when I answer. Most of the time the man talks about himself wanting to know trivial things like how I found out how to kill walkers the right way and how my first kill went. Sometimes he goes darker asking how many I’ve killed and he actually looks haunted when he answers his own question, I see remorse there.

I see tears when he tells me about Lucille and for a moment I judge him naming a weapon after her but the tears are heavy and the guilt thick as he explains he couldn't save her and it’s sadder when he let’s me know she would cut his dick off if she knew he killed in her name with a bat. It’s months later when I tell him about Merle ignoring his questions about my parents, he sees the scars but surely assumes they got there after the walkers. After that day I talk about my brother, the good times and his jokes and run ins with the law. Negan’s laugh is full and does something to me when it’s sincere and deep.

Negan is attractive I understand, it’s not just his lean but muscular body or his height but now that he contributes, shows Judith how to put a worm on a hook or how to plant strawberries right, I see he’s beautiful inside. The bad people are all he kills and he looks hurt by doing it unlike me. My hurt in the morning goes away along with my tormented mind because I find myself waking up everyday wanting to see Negan at my breakfast table just to hear his voice.

The man offers me a cigarette late at night on the porch, my own ran out yesterday and I won’t do a run until the end of the week. My leg taping and foul mood only bound to get worse until then, I extend my hand exposing my wrist that’s marked by my own choice. I know he sees it but he doesn’t question, just takes a too big gulp of air and gives me the cigarette followed by the whole box. When I look into big brown eyes their open and happy at giving a gift to me, I expected pity but don’t see it. “I have another box.” Negan explains too rough sounding and we keep smoking in silence.

The night gets darker, the crickets chirping when Negan brings up his parents. They were cruel and mean and he talks about them like their evil which I guess they are. Somehow it happens I tell my own story, from a man who just told his own he’s shocked and pained by my experience probably because mines worse but maybe because he’s not comforted by our shared understanding, I know I’m not. I wish I was alone in feeling the abuse of unloving parents and my ma was kind in every way but still evil because she saw it and kept us there.

Winter comes a full three seasons of it with Negan, the heat provided is bearable but still too cold. Even friends bunk up to keep warm but I could never do that, now there’s no need for me to sleep with someone because there’s enough beds and I wouldn’t get close enough to them to share the needed warmth. Carol makes me a few extra blankets and it’s hardly cold unless I need to use the bathroom or the temperature drops lower.

When the door creaks open I sit up aiming my still hidden gun long forgotten that it’s for Negan, now just for protection. Negan’s hands come up in surrender, a wide smirk and brown eyes glistening in a small hue of a full moon. He walks to me slowly and I raise my eyebrows curiously as he peels back my covers like my gun still isn’t aimed at him.

Looking ridiculous in sweatpants he crawls into bed. His leg touches mine and his chest dips into me comfortably. It feels right when an arm is thrown around my waist while I still clench my weapon. I lower it, the safety still on and tuck it underneath my pillow gulping when Negan softly whispers in my ear, his lips grazing my skin. “Good night darling.”

I don’t notice it that night even as I think this means more than staying warm but my heart has mended completely up at those three words. Tomorrow all my hurts will have vanished without a trace and because of it I’ll live a happier life.


End file.
